"SOLD!" Stanford slammed, punctuating the end of bidding and the lawful exchange of ownership from one person to another... from one generation to another.

Ah, to experience an old fashion auction, to hear the stories they can tell if you give a good listen.

You can learn a lot about a person by what objects they have accumulated, to comfort and define, through their life's journey. Perhaps more than you care to know.

In most of the country they have yard sales but, a yard sale is nothing like an auction. A Midwestern auction is more like a T-bone steak sizzling on the grill while a yard sale is like a trim of fat that has been sliced off and snatch up by the hound.

I love auctions. I love auctions because I love stories, stories about people and, I love stories about people from bygone days. Like one Saturday a while back, there, in a box of old rusty, broken tools, if you listen closely, you could hear the whispering of voices from the past.

For some without imagination it might be considered all just worthless junk. To most it was a day to garner outstanding bargains, the opportunity to obtain needed items in these troubled, economic times.

And, to a few, including Auctioneer Stanford Howe, it's was a tangible handshake with the fleeting of ages-part of the circle of things.

Stanford Howe has been auctioneering since he could remember. Officially-meaning when his application was filed by the State Board of Auctioneers-he became certified a week after his eighteenth birthday. But everyone knows around these parts that he has been buying, trading and selling stuff to folks ever since he was a kid.

His Nana has told that when all of the other Howe-clan infants were babbling syllables like, "goo-goo-da-da-ma-ma-phfttttt," the first utters of baby Stanford were, "I-got-a-dollar-do-I-hear-two-now-I-got-two-do-I-hear-two'n-half-SOLD!"

That's Stanford, hatched from the egg of long line of auctioneers-it was just in his blood, his heritage.

But heritage, as Stanford is partial to saying these days, only endures if it is remembered by someone who cares. Stanford cares, but understands that he may be one of the last who appreciates the value of those things having a human connection with the simplicity of the past- The Big Circle.

I finally learned from Stanford that each tarnished, dented item is alive, like if holding Aladdin's magic lamp in your hands, it becomes transformed from the unordinary to the extraordinary and so, you are also transformed . You might learn from its wisdom...if you can...if you dare.

In an estate auction it might seem sad to see a lifetime scattered in neat rows, throughout the yard, house, barns and outbuildings, depicting the sum total of a human life as defined by possessions. But another way to look at it, at the end of the auction day, those items will be scattered throughout the countryside, like a scattering of ashes, not dead but alive, to have another life, a new life.

Stanford understands such deep connections. He looks at auctions from a wide point of view; he represents the selling family, the buying buyers and mostly, the benevolent shepherd of all the stuff'. He is not content until each anthropomorphic, orphaned soul is matched with a new home to kindle new, productive and lasting relationships. Often if something does not sell, and he sees the soul within, he will take it home; it is not the fault of the item, there was just not the right bidder present that day-another day perhaps.

He mentioned that when he started conducting his own auctions he was very particular about the condition of the items he was selling. He carefully sorted through stuff, discarding those things he deemed not in good working order. Then at one auction, after the last item had been sold, a young lady came up to him and ask, "when are you going to sell the stuff over in those boxes?" pointed to the undesirable stack by the hay overhang. She said she had waited all day to bid on those particular items.

Never one to ignore his commitment for a sale, he had some of the boys carry over the neglected load of boxes to take another look. Many folks still engaged in the bidding karma hung around to have a look at what treasures might still be had. I was one of them, always curious to find any treasures within; to discover new stories within.

He pluck out a broken oil lamp stand asking the instigating woman, "Are you interested in bidding on this?"

"Yep, you bet."

To Stanford's surprise several folks bid on that piece which finally sold for seven bucks-to the same lady. Stanford figured she would have gone twice that amount; she wasn't about to leave without it. He asked her as he handed it to her, "What are you going to do with that?" she said that she fixes them, cleans them up and uses them to hang her oil lamp collection, or to hang house plants on. She said they are very handy and never misses an opportunity to buy one.

"From that day on I learned never to underestimate the intrinsic value of something from the past," Stanford told me. "Everyone has some interest to an old object...no matter what it looks like from the outside."

Everything in those boxes that day sold, and at a fair price too. I bought me a funny looking hammer. It had a broken handle but, it just so happened that I earlier had bought a bunch of spare handles, taped together for two bucks. One fit just fine. I later learned it was called a Cobblers Hammer with a wide, round strike-face. It turned out to be one of the handiest tools I have. Even now, years later, it is impossible for me to grab it without feeling the spirit of countless others who have used it through time; those faceless, nameless folks now live on within that simple hammer.

But for me it was being part of a circle, a circle that started long ago and, hopefully, will still be spinning long after we all have departed.

Graves get weedy and unvisited; kinships have moved on and forgotten; houses have new names on the mailboxes but, there in your hand is part of their past life that now is part of your life. Someday it will be part of someone else's life, if people still care. I think they will, I figure there will always be folks who care about stories of the past.

In some ironic way, auctions are a tribute to moving on, from the present out into the unknown future, whirling within, and becoming part of that big, old circle.